New BGSU center will study fresh water, human health

BOWLING GREEN — A new Bowling Green State University research center aims to greatly expand how scientists investigate harmful algal blooms that cost Americans an estimated $2 billion a year in costs ranging from lost recreation to more expensive water treatment.

The Lake Erie Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health will receive millions in federal funding to research the causes and possible solutions of algal blooms nationally. George Bullerjahn, one of BGSU’s best known algae researchers, said the center should eventually help with predicting both the onset and toxicity of Lake Erie algal blooms each summer.

A news conference announcing BGSU’s Lake Erie center is scheduled for 11 a.m. on campus, with a panel and reception planned for later today at the National Museum of the Great Lakes on Front Street in East Toledo.

Funding to create the center comes from a five-year, $5.2 million grant issued by the National Science Foundation and another major federal program, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The latter, which goes by the abbreviation NIEHS, is one of 27 institutes and centers that are part of the National Institutes of Health.

NSF and NIEHS also have pledged $30 million to do more freshwater research into the causes and possible solutions of algal blooms. Some of that grant money is to be used to study algal blooms in oceans and estuaries, according to a news release. 

“The grant provides BGSU the resources to be a national leader, and builds upon our prior collaborations,” Mr. Bullerjahn, who is slated to head BGSU’s new center as director and principal investigator, said in a news release.

BGSU President Rodney Rogers in the release said the federal grant money “is a strong show of support for — and recognition of — the quality and importance of our research into harmful algal blooms.”

BGSU has been one of the region’s leaders in studying algal blooms from a global perspective.

The university won a major federal grant after the 2014 Toledo water crisis to host a two-day, first-of-its-kind forum on campus that brought in algae researchers from Asia, Africa, Europe, and other parts of the world. Presentations from that 2015 seminar showed common denominators: Climate change and poor land use, with consistently higher agricultural runoff in most affected parts of the world.

BGSU’s three best-known algae researchers — Mr. Bullerjahn, Tim Davis and Mike McKay — went to Africa’s Lake Victoria last spring to study algal blooms there.

Each are familiar with other major hotspots, such as China’s Lake Taihu, the Florida Everglades, the Pacific Northwest, and many parts of Canada.

Other researchers to be involved with BGSU’s new center include UT Lake Erie Center Director Tom Bridgeman; University of Tennessee researcher Steven Wilhelm, and University of North Carolina researcher Hans Paerl.

The center will be a collaboration between BGSU and nine other universities and research institutions, including the University of Toledo, the University of Michigan, and Ohio State University. Other partners are to include Ohio Sea Grant, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Michigan State University, the State University of New York, the University of Tennessee, and the University of North Carolina.